The incident has highlighted issues with Britain’s asylum system in allowing the suspect to remain in the UK after his claim was rejected, as is the case with a backlog of unresolved or incomplete cases. The Home secretary Priti Patel claimed the ‘whole industry’ was devoted to defending the rights of individuals intent on causing harm 2. In the wake of this suicide bombing, The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and Home Secretary Priti Patel raised the terror threat to ‘severe’, meaning an attack is ‘highly likely. This came after concerns there had been two attacks within a month, where previously Sir David Amess, a conservative MP, was killed at a constituency surgery in Essex. However, Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North West Has stated that investigators have yet to find any leads that suggest that Emad al-Swealmeen had any ideological or political motives, and have not yet ruled out concluding this was not an act of terrorism 3.
Sources have confirmed Al Swealmeen had a history of mental illness, having been sectioned under the mental health act for 6 months after his attempted suicide and erratic behaviour with a knife (date?). Al Swealmeen was not known to MI5 prior to this incident, and investigators have not yet linked him to others of interest in the Merseyside area. This may have been a lone attack by an unstable man learning to make an improvised explosive on the internet with materials collected over a number of months. The device is now thought to have ignited ‘completely unintendedly’ in the taxi, while its intended target was most likely the maternity hospital 4. The Guardian reports that counter-terrorism chiefs are concerned two incidents in quick succession could embolden those considering attempting domestic terrorism, as happened in 2017 3.
There have been widespread media claims attributed to home office sources that Al-Swealmeen abused the asylum system by converting to Christianity to help his asylum application 2. This clearly failed if true, and A church of England spokesman rebutted these claims stating there was no correlation between conversion and fast-tracking applications 5. There are reports that Al-Swealmeen reconverted to Islam in the months before the attack, though this is not confirmed 6. The motivation and intention of the suicide bomber is yet unclear, and hopefully, more will come to light of this confusing case in the following weeks.
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4 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/liverpool-bomb-attack-al-swealmeen-b1960703.html
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